


Prism

by Solvejg



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Betrayal, Contempt at first sight, Drugs, Dubious Consent, F/M, M/M, Musicians!X-Men, Psychological Torture, Recreational Drug Use, Slavery, exotic dancing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-10
Updated: 2013-06-10
Packaged: 2017-12-14 13:16:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/837298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Solvejg/pseuds/Solvejg
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“Just remember I will always love you, Even as I tear your fucking throat away.”</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Prism

 

 

 _"I'm slipping back into the gap again_  
 _I'm alive when you're touching me,_  
 _Alive when you're shoving me down_  
 _But I'd trade it all_  
 _For just a little_  
 _Peace of mind"_

Tool - Pushit

 

 

An inner silence.

 

Total. Lethal. Imperturbable.

 

Like looking through a distorted prism.

 

Charles closed his eyes. Took a deep inspiration. The air was thick with acrid smokes and fumes of rot. The uproar of hundreds of shoed and bared feet made his ears ring, the uncoordinated clinking of chains chaffing against his temples like nails on a chalkboard. _Breath_. He had been lined up with the others in equal rows. The shortest on the front, the tallest behind. Only men and women. The children and the elderly – the few of them left – had been sent to another place. Nobody knew exactly where. Just as well. Nobody really wanted to know.

His skin was moist with sweat and dirt accumulated over the days, his hair clinging to his nape, an uncomfortable yet protecting screen. The sunburns were the worst. Well, setting aside the cramps and the chafes and the exhaustion and the hunger and the thirst and the humiliations. Sometimes, he held the certainty that he was going to die out of shame. There was so much noise and so much silence. His own mind ignoring his begging. But shame didn't really matter anymore. It had been silenced, just like everything else. All he had to do now was _breath_.

Against his left shoulder, Sean was quivering. They had been separated from the others but Charles and Sean had been placed in the same group. Same size, same frame. Same merchandise. They couldn't talk together, though ; _they_ had forced Sean to drink something that made him vomit all night, so he wouldn't be able to speak anymore, and certainly not scream. _Breath_. They had made sure that every gift had been repressed, one way or another. Charles' skull was clasped tighty into a silvery ring that made his forehead hot and sweaty, his thoughts hammering desperatly against his temples to break free of this unnatural confinement. Sometimes, he could even feel the needles that injected the suppressor directly in his head. He had been left alone in his own mind for days, now. His grasp of reality was slowly starting to slip from him. He rarely understood when he was spoken to ; a deaf man limping among unthinking spectres. But the spectres' blowns were very tangible, the pain quite concrete. They had broken his nose, once. With a rifle butt. He had bled and bled, and someone had stuffed paper towels into his fist, mumbling that _no one'd ever want him with a crooked nose_. That had made him laugh, because Raven had always said his nose was so hooked, a fucking owl, which was not even close to the truth, and that had earnt him a slap.

Charles tried to brush Sean's hand with his fingertips, a reassuring touch, but his hands couldn't be moved. _Damn_. There were shackles around his wrists and his ankles, bitting into his flesh, connected by a vulgar chain. _How barbarian_. The skin had wrinkled where the callous metal embrased the epidermis, retracting as if terrified of it. It hurt terribly, but the hurt was good. The hurt anchored his mind. Sean must have caught sight of his movement, because his quivering slightly subsided.

Through the worn fabric of the market awnings, Charles could see that the sun was high and ruthless in the sky. Somewhere behind him, someone whimpered dimly. Even without his gift, he could tell what they were all thinking, the shackled men and women in rows, faltering on their own legs, lips so dry they cracked and bled. _I'd kill my neighbour for a glass of water. I'd kill my mother for a glass of water. I'd kill my mother with my bare hands for a **drop** of water_. Breathing was like swallowing mouthfuls of boiling oil.

A placard was hung around his neck. Hasty capital letters, childlike, white on black. An indisputable statement.

 

 

_[Charles, 26, Th36, Ω 3]_

As a long whistle rose in the stench, the market gradually fell into an unnatural quietness. Charles cherished these brief instants of silence, when his mind and the outer world toned perfectly. The calm before the storm. _Don't fret_. He knew that only minutes after, the buyers would fill the market like pests in the sewers and the racket would tower again. In the distance, he could already hear the low humming of internal combustion engines.


End file.
